​Flushed away: London’s sewers have highest cocaine level in Europe

Scientists have found that London has the highest concentration of cocaine in its sewage system, closely followed by Amsterdam, according to test results from 50 European cities.

The EU’s drug monitoring
body has determined that the average daily concentration of
cocaine in London’s sewer system was 737mg per 1,000 people in
2014.

Measuring the concentration of drugs in waste water helps
scientists monitor the level of illicit drug use in major
metropolitan cities.

For instance, the amount of cocaine in London’s waste water
drastically rises on Fridays and Sundays and falls back down on
Sundays and Mondays, while in Amsterdam, consumption rises later
in the weekend, peaking on Sunday.

Wastewater analysis is a “rapidly developing scientific
discipline with the potential for monitoring real-time
population-level trends in illicit drug use,” the European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said in
its research.

The study also shows that Amsterdam’s sewers have much greater
concentrations of cannabis, and London has the fourth highest
daily concentration of ecstasy.

At the same time, drugs like cannabis, methamphetamine, and
amphetamine were not found in London’s waste water.

Oslo in Norway and Dresden in Germany had the highest levels of
methamphetamine in their sewage.

EMCDDA warned that drug agencies have very little comprehension
of what kind of drug sales are being organized on the dark web –
parts of the internet which remain hidden from regular access.

“Cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, are used to facilitate
anonymous transactions, and stealth packaging is used to
facilitate transportation of small quantities of drugs through
established commercial channels,” said the report.

Meanwhile, there is an ongoing debate concerning the UK
government’s war on drugs. Liberal Democrat leadership candidate
Norman Lamb labeled the war on drugs a “catastrophic
failure” on Monday, calling on the government to legalize
cannabis.

In England and Wales, the government spends £2-4 billion each
year fighting drugs, according to the Transform Drug Policy
Foundation, a charitable think tank that campaigns for an end to
the drug war.

According to recent statistics, there were 2,995 drug related
deaths in 2013 (involving both legal and illegal drugs),
according to the Office of National Statistics’. This is up from
2012, when there were 2,597.